Urban Crime is the Israel-Hamas War of the Domestic U.S. News Cycle

...and Alan Dershowitz needs to shut the hell up

The primary purpose of U.S. news is to generate outrage, to sow division, and above all, to entertain. Crime, especially in (Democrat-run) cities, is always a revenue-generating topic due largely to our natural tribal instincts. When there’s a highly public case captured on multiple cell phone video angles involving a white guy killing a black guy (or vice versa), the story becomes akin to a piece of meat going out to ravenous wolves.

Enter Daniel Penny, who out of the goodness of his heart, strangled a mentally disturbed man in an NYC subway car for the safety of his fellow straphangers:

Unfortunately, Penny did not obey the cardinal rule of keeping your fucking mouth shut when getting interrogated by police with no lawyer present. He’s now on trial for second-degree manslaughter. I touched on this case in my article on the flaws of “The Free Press,” however the following clip from this video inspired me to write a lengthier analysis. You’re welcome.

Loyalists to my little blog here know full well my level of disdain for Alan Doucheowitz. I happen to believe that he is a self-absorbed asshole and a poor representative of Jews in general. What especially pisses me off is that if you replace “Daniel Penny” with “OJ Simpson” in the clip above, his entire argument would be the same, only with an added self-congratulatory plug about him being on the latter’s legal dream team.

Since Doucheowitz also fancies himself an expert on the Israel-Hamas War and has appeared on similar programs to pontificate on that issue, I’m going to provide a list of talking points of his about this case that quickly fall apart with closer scrutiny. As if one repeats something over and over, it makes them right—no matter how ignorant they are of the facts:

• Daniel Penny should be protected for being a “Good Samaritan.” Good Samaritan laws exist to protect people who help others in a medical emergency. Who exactly was the person in this situation experiencing that? If we go by the “he was having a psychotic/drug-induced episode” theory, then that person was Neely—and the action wasn’t with the intent of helping him. If Neely was acting erratically not out of a psychiatric emergency but rather because he was just a common asshole, then who were the people in need of medical help at the point Penny put him in a chokehold?

• Jordan Neely had a history of schizophrenia and marijuana in his system at the time of his death, so those were contributing factors (read: the medical examiner testified at the trial that the official cause of death was strangulation). I’m no expert, but it’s my understanding that schizophrenia and/or marijuana (legal or otherwise) don’t cause strangulation.

• If Penny gets convicted, no one will want to come to another’s defense against a dangerous person in public transportation ever again. Do you notice a term that doesn’t apply in this case at all? “Self-defense.” As in, the one situation during which it would be appropriate to put someone in a chokehold.

To be sure, urban crime has risen in the last few years—it’s one of the issues Trump ran on (and one of the major reasons he won a 2nd non-consecutive term). In the decade that I lived in NYC, crime was at a historic low. I felt like I was living in the greatest policing success story in American history. Of course, policing there was not without its problems (see stop-and-frisk). Due to a variety of policy changes since, the pendulum has swung the other way, making NYC far more dangerous now than during the time I lived there.

It’s not just NYC. Those of us who live in major cities see these types of characters on the daily: people who are clearly mentally ill, living on the street, acting belligerently, and refusing treatment. Many have criminal records, but you don’t know that just by looking at them on the street. Unless one of them were coming at me physically, you could not pay me to put my hands on someone in this situation—but I also lack the testosterone that would normally motivate that response. Even if someone like Neely were making direct verbal threats—and I mean, who hasn’t had an encounter with a stranger like that in the past?—it usually doesn’t warrant physical force in response.

We could pen several articles about the failures of our public healthcare system, but the overall policy shifts in the United States lean more towards patients making their own decisions about whether or not to stay in treatment. Unless a judge determines they’re an imminent danger to themselves or others, they cannot have mental health services forced on them. Obviously, that creates its own brand of dangers for the general public. I suppose one could make the argument that Neely’s history meant that he shouldn’t have been allowed out in society in the first place. But I have no idea; I never met the guy.

Here is my defense of Daniel Penny: he did not mean to kill Jordan Neely. This act was more testosterone- than racially-motivated. Was he a Good Samaritan for doing what he did? No. One’s history of schizophrenia and drug use doesn’t automatically mean the actions of the perpetrator don’t rise to the level of criminal negligence. That is why Penny is being charged with manslaughter and not first- or second-degree murder. Is he guilty? The jury is (literally) still out.

After the jury reaches a verdict in this case, no doubt the United Healthcare CEO murder will replace the void that the Neely death leaves in the “crime only happens in Democrat-run cities” news cycle. Thankfully, both the shooter and the victim in that case were white men. In a month, no one will even remember Penny or Neely’s names. And other than dead Jews, there is nothing that western consumers of news love more than dead CEOs.